HunterHog

joined 1 year ago
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Hello, there! I’m Logan Bonner, Pathfinder Lead Designer, here to discuss some of the changes to spells and spellcasting in the remastered books, especially Pathfinder Player Core. James recently went over some details about the remastered wizard, and I’m going to cover the changes to spellcasting overall.

If you want to read some more on the subject, the Core Preview file goes into detail about the term “spell rank” replacing “spell level,” the removal of spell schools, the new spell format seen in the following examples, and some more information about focus spells and the remastered Refocus action.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

You are correct, the agile trait reduces the MAP penalty on its own attack and isn’t dependent on the previous attack being agile.

In general, for a small damage dice size difference, I believe agile is about equal in damage on average. Consider that for an average 1 damage difference between a d6 and d8, agile will miss 5% less and crit 5% more at MAP-4 than a d8 at MAP-5. This difference becomes even greater at MAP-10 vs MAP-8, becoming now actually wholly worth it. However, the value of a third attack is dubious as usual and so while it is strictly better here on average that doesn't mean it's actually worth doing (and if it's not worth doing, then whatever value it has here is most likely to be discarded)

However, a dice size increase is worth roughly two traits (you can see this by comparing average quantity of traits across damage dice size) which means agile is one trait worth two during MAP as it averages out to equal with a weapon of a bigger size.

This means that a d4 weapon with like 5 traits where one of them is agile has a ‘trait’ economy of 6 traits during MAP as it averages a d6 weapon’s damage but still retains the other 4 traits it only gets due to being d4 compared to the 2-3 total that a d6 might have.

I don’t have raw numbers for an extreme example I.e. d12 and a d4 agile but the rule of thumb is it pans out super slightly ahead on average in small dice size differences iirc

EDIT: To note, this doesn't factor in situations like "what if the monster is one hit from death and I need more accuracy to secure that it dies NOW because it's a priority target?" as it is difficult to calculate in whiteboard math, but it's entirely possible that agile pulls ahead with weighted statistics.

Also to note is this doesn't necessarily apply to monsters. They have higher stats for the same level and typically have greater accuracy and their trait economy is different. It's possible that their inflated accuracy makes agile less useful, or that their inflated damage makes the extra crit chance from agile better, but I can't quite say off the cuff.

Still, the TLDR I suppose is that agile is good if it affords you a trait that a weapon of one damage dice size bigger would never have. Say, if you can't get a d6 weapon with Reach, then an agile d4 weapon with Reach is just as good during MAP, but also has reach. That's about it.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Everything I could’ve ever asked for. Talk about an early Christmas!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Oh no, I wasn't assuming as such! Sorry, I tend to get really into the weeds with my responses and tend to be really formal in the way I write and I have been made aware that can come off aggressive without context before. :s I wasn't trying to force my opinion, just trying to be as thorough as possible in explaining what I meant since you asked.

I was trying to explain that I really was glad it worked great for you, that wasn't sarcastic! But it's just that I've seen it break down really badly for tables that are less experienced with TTRPGs and since OP was so close to finishing his game and I couldn't know that much about his table's level of experience and they had spent so much time with a single game, I felt it'd make the most sense to just wrap up and start over with fresh eyes since it's a brand new system.

 

cross-posted from: https://pathfinder.social/post/48899

Hiya, just finished proofreading my second article, and here it is!

This one, as the title indicates, is about where problems of lack of investment and feedback start, and how to be proactive and use the tools available to you to set proper, well-communicated expectations so that you ensure table quality and maintain it throughout, while nipping these problems in the bud before they even arise.

I hope it's of some use to any of you. As always, I'm open for discussion and questions on the content.

 

cross-posted from: https://pathfinder.social/post/48899

Hiya, just finished proofreading my second article, and here it is!

This one, as the title indicates, is about where problems of lack of investment and feedback start, and how to be proactive and use the tools available to you to set proper, well-communicated expectations so that you ensure table quality and maintain it throughout, while nipping these problems in the bud before they even arise.

I hope it's of some use to any of you. As always, I'm open for discussion and questions on the content.

 

Hiya, just finished proofreading my second article, and here it is!

This one, as the title indicates, is about where problems of lack of investment and feedback start, and how to be proactive and use the tools available to you to set proper, well-communicated expectations so that you ensure table quality and maintain it throughout, while nipping these problems in the bud before they even arise.

I hope it's of some use to any of you. As always, I'm open for discussion and questions on the content.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

And that's great that it's worked for you - but for a majority of tables, especially those that only play 5e, it can be a challenge to adapt to another system. There is a tendency to assume things work the same that needs to be carefully picked apart, and one of these things is the split between individual power and party power on the player side. On the GM side, it's the tendency to be fast and loose with encounter balancing.

I've seen a lot of tables try to start playing PF2e carrying over from 5e and if their heart isn't in it with the notion of trying an altogether new, different system (rather than just "D&D but...") then it tends to end pretty disastrously - GMs homebrewing right out the gate in ways that make the game hard-to-impossible to enjoy or building insanely difficult encounters, players building their character exclusively for individual synergy without thinking of the party and showing a lack of understanding of using skill actions to assist each other, or a lack of understanding of how to manipulate the action economy of the enemy.

Any one of these things individually is something that can be slowly learned out of with time, but a lot of times I see these happen at the same time and you end up with lopsided parties that don't know how to assist each other against insanely difficult encounters and it's just TPK after TPK which leaves people with a bad taste and perception of the system, when the system itself isn't at fault here.

I see that you moderate the TTRPGs community over at your instance (which I've greatly enjoyed btw) so I can only assume you have experience with a lot of systems, in which case I can understand why it seems a lot simpler to you. But for tables where people have only played 5e, or have played other systems but in recent memory have only played 5e (I don't know which OP's is, but at the very least the latter given they've played 5e the last 3 years) there can be a lot of friction.

Additionally, I wasn't recommending the characters be carried over except at level 1 or abruptly ending the campaign when I said 'start over'. I was recommending "finish your campaign in 5e first and then start over in PF2e with fresh eyes." Characters in PF2e are very different and people tend to have built expectations of what they can and can't do by now or a specific mix of mechanic and flavor that will be different in PF2e coming from 5e. Some people are okay with that, some really aren't. But everyone is okay with starting a new game, so finishing up your ongoing one rather than swapping halfway is the safe route.

What works for a table might not work for another, and the perspective I got of OP's table is that they would benefit from starting over once their 5e campaign finished.

EDIT: Especially given that OP was already 1-2 weeks from finishing his campaign, wrapping it up was the most sensible thing.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (5 children)

The ability to host your own data - both for privacy, and insurance that the instance you host your account in won’t suddenly disappear.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Seems to be the general consensus from what I've seen any time it's been brought up even on the PF2e Discord. You just can't do it off of a single effect, i.e. Ward Medic, but they can be healed individually with Treat Wounds.

And yes, the Eidolon can indeed be healed as per the Eidolon feature of the Summoner class.

Damage taken by either you or the eidolon reduces your Hit Points, while healing either of you recovers your Hit Points.

So it seems pretty clear Treat Wounds works on them. If they couldn't be injured, then they would be immune to damage which they aren't. Inferring otherwise is imposing the flavor of 'damage to the connection' or something over rules, which I'm not a fan of in a system as tight as PF2e. (That's just me, though.)

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Yes, those are the rules.

Like with your actions, if you and your eidolon are both subject to the same effect that affects your Hit Points, you apply those effects only once (applying the greater effect, if applicable). For instance, if you and your eidolon get caught in an area effect that would heal or damage you both, only the greater amount of healing or damage applies.

If both are affected by the exact same effect, then yeah, it only applies once.

The Treat Wounds effect is different since it's not the exact same effect, they're still separate entities and it's not applied simultaneously. hence the question. General consensus seems to be that you can, just not simultaneous (i.e. ward medic)

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Sure is! Here's their tweet about it, too.

Not my genre of game at all, but I'm curious to see where it goes. Who knows, maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Excalibur Prime so I can watch the world burn.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Regarding number one - If you're coming back from a long time away and haven't done any quests at all, then I recommend doing quests. They unlock important content, and there's a few that are necessary to be able to do Eidolons properly.

As for the remainder of the questions, if you care about meta (or at least some form of guide on making weapons work) and the performance of weapons/frames then I recommend you check out the tier lists and build guides on Overframe. Not all super upvoted builds are up to date or great, so I recommend you look around on each piece of equipment, read the comments on the builds, and scrutinize for yourself on what you think might work and be good.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Half-shameful plug for my own at Transient Thoughts on Roleplaying Games. I just recently started it so I only have an article as of yet, but you're welcome to check it out if you find it interesting.

 

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/116973

Hope this doesn't come across as too self promote-y. I'm not really looking for views or anything, but I thought I'd share what I made.

I'll admit I'm a bit anxious posting this, but I hope it helps someone or you just find it an interesting topic for discussion. It's just a small minimalist blog where I talk about TTRPG design and how I run my games and stuff. If I've misunderstood how this works and the link doesn't work, here's another one: Transient Thoughts on Roleplaying Games. I only have one article right now, about battlemaps and how they influence encounter design a lot more than one would think, and the impact of small choices in making them.

(I fixed preview formatting and opening articles, and also changed theme to be less aggressive to the eyes!) ~~For the best viewing experience I recommend clicking the title of a post to open it up properly (I'm still messing about with getting the layout of things prim and proper..)~~ and you can check the pinned 'About' post if you wanna know more.

If you do read it and have any feedback, or just wanna talk about it, I'd be more than glad to answer any questions in the comments here :D

Hope I'm ok putting this here, just wanted to share with some more people, start a conversation and all that ^^

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